Hacker News Reader

It wasn’t just any bank, it was a bank insured by the U.S. government. The U.S. government does not take being lied to lightly.

By the way, anyone who has applied for a mortgage in the U.S. has seen many, many warnings about how lying on a mortgage application is a federal crime that carries very serious penalties.

View on HN

you have it backwards, this is just how the federal government establishes jurisdiction over things it can otherwise not constitutionally regulate, but wishes to.

if you can't think of which specific clause of the constitution allows for that law, it is either comes from financial rails that the federal government extended outwards, or interstate commerce.

It might come from:

“To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;”

U.S. Const. Art. I, Sec. 8.

If a mortgage is a security in this context. But I don’t know for sure. Usually the answer is the Commerce Clause.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com